Rex gets better of brother again as Jets upset Saints

Saints tight end Jimmy Graham beats Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie for a touchdown during the first half. It was one of only two touchdowns given up by the Jets' defense against the high-powered Saints on Sunday.

Rex Ryan was in a good mood, and why wouldn't he have been? Anyone who has a brother remembers the joy of beating them at anything, whether it was Horse on the driveway basketball court or Monopoly on a rainy day.

That's the thing about sibling rivalries. They're intense, no matter what you're playing for.

So imagine beating your twin brother in front of a large gathering at MetLife Stadium, with a whole lot more watching on their flat screens, as the direction of your season, and quite possibly your career, hangs in the balance?

"Alright, I beat my brother again,'' a smiling Ryan said as he stepped to the podium, before licking the index finger on his right hand and chaulking another one up for himself in the air, improving to 5-0 against Rob Ryan during their NFL tenures, now the New Orleans Saints' defensive coordinator.

You couldn't have blamed Rex if he'd come into the room doing cartwheels, which would have been a story in itself. A week after his defense got humiliated in Cincinnati they made Drew Brees and Jimmy Graham and the Saints' vaunted offense seem rather pedestrian in a 26-20 victory.

And while everyone's been fawning all over Rob Ryan for the job he's done improving the Saints' defense, a key component in their fast start, this one was no contest. It was Rex Ryan's group that forced two turnovers, sacked Brees twice, hit him six other times and knocked seven passes down.

Brees may have thrown for 383 yards, but he only found the end zone twice, while the Saints rushed for just 41 yards.

"There's a little extra,'' Ryan said, "but at the end of the day now you realize that your bro just took a loss, so that's a tough thing, there's no question. I pull for them every single week but one. And I've mentioned it before. I look at their scores. I don't know another score. There's not one game I could tell you how it went today. But if the Saints were playing I would have known.''

You can be assured Ryan wasn't worrying about his brother's feelings when the Jets were setting the tone early, as safety Dawan Landry tipped a ball intended for Benjamin Watson, then tipped it again to keep it alive, allowing linebacker Damario Davis to make a sliding interception. It ultimately staked the Jets a 3-0 lead with 5:41 left in the first quarter.

"We tell everybody, when our backs are against the wall, special things are going to happen,'' said Davis. "There's always going to be a David vs. Goliath mentality because nobody thinks we're going to do the special things that we do.

"Coach Rex's main thing was bounce back. Don't even hesitate. Don't flinch. We knew that wasn't us (in Cincinnati). We told everybody that wasn't us, and we came back and showed who we were today.''

Then, just 27 seconds after Chris Ivory's TD run late in the second quarter pulled the Jets to within 14-13, Antonio Cromartie picked Brees off again, leading to a Geno Smith TD run.

They never looked back.

In the second half they held the Saints to a pair of field goals, had another interception called back by a penalty, and stopped them on a critical fourth-and-one from the Jets' 36-yard-line with 7:54 remaining when linebacker Quinton Coples sniffed out an ill-conceived reverse to tight end Josh Hill.

Fittingly, it was Coples, the first rounder from a year ago who the organization is hoping will emerge as a weekly force, who dragged Brees down, forcing him to flip the ball away in desperation on fourth down with 1:27 to play.

"Do things the Jets way,'' said Coples of their mindset last week. "We understand we didn't do things the right way against Cincinnati. We wanted to make sure that we step up and make sure we get things done and go into the bye week with some momentum.''

The Saints are going to be just fine. Heck, they might even challenge for a spot in Super Bowl XLVIII right back here on Feb. 2 if they can get hot and make the rest of the NFC go through the Superdome in January.

We're still not sure about the up-and-down Jets, now 5-4. After the debacle against the Bengals, it's fair to say that Rob Ryan could have turned the heat way up on his brother if his defense hadn't, for instance, allowed 198 yards on the ground.

That's the thing about Rex Ryan. He's something of a survivor, and he needed this one way more than his brother did. Like him or not as a head coach, as a defensive coordinator, he gets his guys to play for him when he needs them most.

And when his twin brother's on the opposite sideline, Rex Ryan has been at his best.

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Rex gets better of brother again as Jets upset Saints

Rex Ryan was in a good mood, and why wouldn't he have been? Anyone who has a brother remembers the joy of beating them at anything, whether it was Horse on the driveway basketball court or Monopoly

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